Saturday, April 02, 2016

I don't usually post other peoples poetry on my blogs, but for Suzie Lowe I will make an exception. She sent me the following piece today:

WAITING FOR SLEEP

Close to midnight And
wide awake.
Silence in surround sound
What lurks in the shadows beneath my bed.
Listen carefully you can hear my heart pound.
Still awake waiting for sleep, relax, get out of my head.

WHAT WAS COTTON? (STOLON OCTOPI)
Sloppy Joe's, mee-mawing, 'what was cotton?'
There they were knocking up the worlds trousers
Once upon a time when the mills were here
Lentil soup for supper, I think, innit?
Outer Mongolia's, eating lentils
Now that the post production rot's got out

Only who could spin a yarn like that now
Cotton was the pride of Manchester once
Trousers that would change the world if only...
Outside in the cold light of day pissed up
Pissed off with the way that they've been kicked out
Innit! and a bit of bread with your slop...18102011/6

WHAT WAS COTTON? (REVEALED)
Cotton was the pride of Manchester once
Once upon a time when the mills were here
There they were knocking up the worlds trousers
Trousers that would change the world if only...
Only who could spin a yarn like that now
Now that the post production rot's got out
Outside in the cold light of day pissed up
Pissed off with the way that they've been kicked out
Outer Mongolia's, eating lentils
Lentil soup for supper, I think, innit?
Innit! and a bit of bread with your slop...
Sloppy Joe's, mee-mawing, 'what was cotton?'17102011/1

THEY FOLLOW

Uni-ted in Lublin Warsawza and Dublin
Uni-ted are big in Hong Kong
Uni-ted are thunder, they cheer from Down Under
Uni-ted are strong in Korea

Uni-ted Uni-ted from Bang Kwok to Blighty
Uni-ted they sing in Cadiz
But down my street we all follow the blues
Home, away, win, or lose

‘Cos you know what they say down my end,
well me and my mates anyway
There’s two big teams in Manchester;
City and City reserves
260409

THREE TO THREE PAST THREE ON A SATURDAY AFTERNOONON THE KIPPAX STREET IN MOSS SIDE MANCHESTER IN 1969
It was Saturday afternoon at three o’clock when the chant went up.Manchester Boot Boys!
And the Bovver Girls joined in, taking the bubble gum out of their mouths.
And expertly spinning it round and round and round an index finger.Manchester Boot Girls!
They cried, flicking the sticky gum over the heads of the police line.
Towards the Rockers who gathered on the left side of the steep terrace.
The Boot Boys were a makeshift mob of Skinheads and Scooter-boys and Mods.
Most had Steelies, Hobbies and Docs on their feet and the Mods wore Oxfords.
The Bovver Girls wore Monkey Boots to the match in those days, with red socks.
And the Mods and the Skinheads and the Bovver girls all wore Crombie coats.
The Scooter-boys had Fishtail Parka’s with tin badges on the front.
They rode Lambretta’s with ‘Sex Machine’ emblazoned on the side panels.
The Greasers wore leather jackets with studs and sleeveless denim colours.
They all said that they rode Triumph Bonneville’s and six-fifty Norton’s.
The ageing Ted’s used to stand next to the Rockers on the left hand side.
The Ted’s always wore their drainpipes and winkle pickers or blue suede shoes.
When the game went quiet the Bikers would taunt the Scooter-boys like this:‘Are you there skin?’
They would sing,
And the chant would come back,‘Are you there Grease?’
And the Rockers would laugh, giving a little wave to provoke the Mods.‘Back to school on Monday!’
The Greaser’s would jeer.‘Back to school on Monday!’
But soon things would settle down and the whole of the Kippax Street would cheer.
When City scored a goal – everywhere, all round the ground the chant would ring.Manchester la, la, la, la,Manchester la, la,la, la...MSC261107

If you think any of the above are new words then think again.
I googled Fanchester and it gave me 143,000,000 hits!

SHINING SHOES

Shining shoes at Waterloo, his medals at his side.
Jon was born in Salford in Eighteen ninety-five.

His Daddy came from Ireland a digger of the ditch -

The Ship Canal to Manchester -
that kept that city rich.

His Mammy was a mill lass in Ancoats Lancashire

She worked long days for little pay -
nothing much to cheer.
Jon's Grandpa was a Bargee -
on The Bridgewater

carting coals from Worsley to dirty Manchester.

By Nineteen ten, Jon’s schooling done –
an apprenticeship that was no fun …

from early morn to after dark
at an engineer's in TraffordPark.

At eighteen he went to France
to fight the German might.

Jon lost all his pals there but he came back alright!

He's got one leg to stand on
but man can't live on pride

shining shoes for farthings his medals at his side.

AS 1991

Glossary:

Waterloo is a railway station in London.

A Bargee lived and worked on the canal barges.

The Bridgewater is the oldest proper canal in England.

Ancoats is an area of Manchester where many cotton mills stand.

TraffordPark had many factories.

Farthings are old money, four farthings = one penny.

The Medals are from the First World War 1914-1918.

From my Paris collection:

VINGT GITANES
I wander alone in this great place
no-one bothers me, hardly,
apart from a few girls,
calling out of upstairs windows after dark.
'Hey English!' and 'Sprecken sie Deutch?'
But I'm tongue tied, except for Vingt Gitanes, Sil vous plait!
and Merci becoup, Madamossell!
After a while I start to read the shop front names.
The street signs come alive -
Rue de St. Germain, Montparnasse
and Parc de Champs de Mars.
Advertising bollards suck me in.
Newspaper HEADLINES shout at me.
Eventually, I speak my first French sentence.
But the girl behind the Turkish bar
answers me in broken English.Chicago, hey Mac? she asks.Manchester! I tell her.
Oh, Bobby Charlton, she grins.
And I can't tell if she's taking the piss
out of my haircut, or what?From 1987 rewritten 20697

My version of Shakespeare's sonnet 18:

ON THE EIGHTH DAY

On the eighth day god created Manchester

More lovely than any place he made

Rough winds and rain to come before Easter

Summer’s over before the world cup’s played

And yet a heat wave has been forecast soon

The sick squid all rides free unfair funfair

This week the planets line up with the moon

It’s not coincidence that we’ll be there

But our eternal summer’s still to come

As everything around us fades away

Our fair ground at Platt Fields will still be fun

And the eternal tightrope will not fray

So long as we with third eye still can see

Enslave the queen and this gives life to me

080414

WHEELS WITHIN WHEELSAny bit of sunshine brings them outoutside my front gate this morningmourning the death of this cold springrings on their fingers banging tins.